


from first to last

by asrealasyouare



Category: Bitter Greens - Kate Forsyth
Genre: Child Abandonment, Gen, The Ospedale della Pietà, clubfoot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 15:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12560472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asrealasyouare/pseuds/asrealasyouare
Summary: This is Elena's story.





	from first to last

The first memory Elena had of her mother was this: a gentle hand gripping her club foot, binding it in gauze. A sweet, soothing voice, singing a lilting lullaby.

  
The last memory was this: a small, plain carriage outside a large, square building. The same sweet voice. “I’m so sorry, Elena. I’ll come back for you, I’ll promise”, her mother had said, before leaving her with the nuns at the Ospedale della Pieta.

  
For a long time, Elena clung to those last words. She cried and shouted, refusing to do the chores the sisters assigned her, refusing to listen to the sisters at all. _Tomorrow my mother will come_ , she told herself, though her inner voice sounded uncertain even to her. _Tomorrow my mother will come for me, and I’ll never see this place again._

  
But her mother never did come back.

 -~-

Eventually, Elena accepted that her mother had abandoned her. She got on with her life.

  
Se made friends wit te kiten staff and the teacher who came every week. She paid more attention in lessons, and found herself interested in history and literature. She joined the choir. Months passed, then years. Slowly but surely, Elena made the Ospedale della Pieta her home.

  
“I don’t think I want her to come back for me.” She told Margherita, as they swept the floor in the girls’ dorms. “I still miss her, but-”

  
“It’s not her you miss, because you don’t remember her anymore.” Came Margherita’s soft, knowing reply. The girls at the Pieta understood each other. All of them were abandoned, after all.

  
There were other girls with deformities, many more severe and debilitating than Elena’s own. There were girls like Imelda, whose parents were too poor to feed her, and like Carmela, an orphan the nuns had taken in. Most didn’t remember where they were born. Some didn’t remember their birthdays. Somehow, between lessons and choir and chores and prayer, Elena found herself caring for all of them.

  
She guided the little ones when they first arrived, scared and lost and lonely. She was their friend, and, when she grew older, their mother. And when they left, as wives and servants and adopted daughters, it was her who watched them go with a bittersweet smile.

  
More years passed. Margherita left with La Strega Bella, then Imelda and Carmela. Elena turned twenty-one; there seemed little chance of a husband or a position in a private household for herself. So it was on her twenty-second birthday, ten years after she arrived, that Elena took her vows as a nun and joined the Ospedale della Pieta as a Sister Elena.

  
Her work was not done. There would be more songs to sing, more girls to guide and raise and send off into the world. The Pieta was her home, now and forever more. Elena was alright with that.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I'm the first person to post anything for this book. Honestly, if anyone else ever reads this I'll be very happy. If you liked this drabble even a little, please please please leave a kudos or a comment. Just a "Hey, that was great" will do. Thanks!


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